Someone please explain....Hardware Disease?

[bheila]

What the heck are these magnets for? Everytime I go on Jeffers I see them and then today when I was flipping through my magazine I saw them. Can someone please explain how they work.
I know I know FarmerKitty I could've asked on BackYardCows.
http://www.jefferslivestock.com/ssc...FARCWT7&pf_id=16094&cmkw=hardware AND disease

 

[raindrop]

When cows eat metal/nails in their feed or pick stuff up accidentally from the floor it sticks to the magnet in the rumen and can't move around to puncture the digestive tract. The magnet sinks to the bottom of the rumen and does not let any metal move down the GI tract.

 

[chickiebaby]

pretty cool. That's thing number 137,591,246,765,456 that I did not know about cows.

 

[bheila]

Quote:
So the magnet never comes out then? It just stays in the rumen to keep collecting metal/nails? That's disgusting to think that cows have metal/nails in their feed. Thank god I know what I'm feeding my steer.

 

[Knight Hawk Ranch]

Well they are not intentionally fed the metal. Cattle will eat nearly anything including bits and pieces of metal.

I have a steer in the pen also, to fatten. His gate is latched with a chain. He has grain in front of him, free choice mineral and clean water. I have a bull and a horse that come up and interact with him through the panels. I see him lipping that chain quite frequently.

After working with a large animal vet and watching this steer, I can see why they might need a magnet.

 

[Farmer Kitty]

Yes, you could have ask on

As said, cattle will eat anything. Bits of metal could have been baled, or chopped up with their forage or if your feeding grain have been havested with the corn, etc. found in it. This is especially true in fields along highways or busy roads but can happen even on a deadend back road. The magnet pulls the metal to it in the rumen and therefore keeping it from causing trouble. It won't however, catch metals such as aluminum. This is why it's so important for bow hunters to find every arrow they shot in or near a field due to the fact that if the arrow is in the field it could get chopped up and kill a cow. We have revoked hunting priveleges from one bow hunter for not finding his arrow in the field. Luckily DH saw the arrow before it was in the feed (or tire).

 

[Blooming chicks]

I love this site... I learn something new everyday.

 

[she-earl]

We are dairy farmers and have needed to give a cow a magnet. You need to make sure you give a cow only one magnet because the magnets could adhere to each other from different areas pinching something vital in between them. Most often, the cows get it in the feed. Like it was stated, aluminum will not attach to a magnet, nor will glass. If the cow ingest something that does not adhere to the magnet, it may puncture through the digestive walls. When this happens, it can pierce the heart or another vital organ. It may even cause an infection wherever it migrates to in the cow. Generally, it is from bottles and cans tossed out of vehicle windows. You would do all farmers a favor by letting people know why you should not litter. Losing a good milk cow is costly.

 

[bheila]

Quote:
I know they don't feed them metal on purpose silly. Now that I know what the magnets are for I can understand how the cows could get metal in them, especially since watching our farmer scoop up silage from off the ground.